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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24991582">The Roads We Explore</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strailo/pseuds/S_L_Lewis'>S_L_Lewis (Strailo)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Body Horror, Dark, Horror, Horror Fiction, Other, Romance, Short Stories, Thriller, body parts, don't ask how that works just go with it, horror romance, it gets kind of nasty so watch the warnings at the start of each chapter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:13:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>13,967</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24991582</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strailo/pseuds/S_L_Lewis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They all had their own stories to tell. </p><p>Some were just odder than others. </p><p>An attempt by the author to figure out her characters and their motivations for future stories.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Original Male/Original Male, original male/original female</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. A Dream is just a Dream</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Information from the Original Wattpad Post: From here on out, you will be reading various short stories about various characters. Everyone from my current WIP "Bad Dog" to "Roses and Books" to an untitled Romance book will be written within these pages. </p><p>The information placed in the title will be as such: Title of Story (World the characters come from)</p><p>The information before the story will contain the following:</p><p>Title<br/>Word Count<br/>Story World<br/>Characters<br/>Prompt<br/>Warnings. </p><p>Any and all warnings will be applied to each chapter. I will not deal with people stating that I didn't warn them about things. </p><p>This is mostly going to be pieces of stories that I'm writing to learn about my characters and a way for me to pause in my writing of my Harry Potter fic "Obscurity". </p><p>Chapter 1 Information: Title: A Dream is a Dream</p><p>Word Count: 1120</p><p>Story World: Retail and Supernatural (Starts with Bad Dog, WIP)</p><p>Prompt: head in a locker</p><p>Warnings: language, head in a locker, blood</p><p>*~*~*~*</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dodging around his fellow students, Alexander complained about idiots who thought that their shit didn't stink just because their parents had money in his head. He was being forced to deal with three of said idiots on a new class project that would go over most of the semester. He wasn't looking forward to that, but the fourth person he was working with didn't make it so bad.</p><p> </p><p>Sliding around a group of cheerleaders who were discussing the practices that they would need for Regionals, he sighed as he got to his locker, picking up his lock. He spun the dial with well practiced moment, giving it a tug and unlocking it. He pulled it from the hole and lifted the door jamb as he started to dig around in his bag. He found himself distracted as he hunted down his maths book and English text, wanting to get to the library before it closed for the day so he could do some minor prepping for the project.</p><p>Looking, Alexander noticed that the hall had for the most part emptied out beyond three of the four that he was going to be working with. Most of his fellow students were either heading for practice, or just wanting to get out for the day. The cheerleaders were heading around the corner to the smaller gym while the last of the basketball players disappeared down the hall to the bigger gym.</p><p>He licked at his lips, deciding to just drop off his books, and turned to his opened locker finally.</p><p>His body became still when his eyes landed on what waited for him within the lockers. The thump of his textbooks dropping to the ground from his hands was a distant echo as he stared. His mouth fell open, eyes wide and staring, uncomprehending.</p><p>Sitting on his locker shelf, next to the box that held his extra pens, pencils and erasers, and the empty lunch box, sat a head. For a split second, Alexander thought, hoped, that it was fake. But the way the eyes stared back in a glazed, empty way, and the blood that puddled around the ragged neck was far from fake.</p><p>The blood was too thick to be fake and held a faint coppery smell.</p><p>A scream of terror sounded from behind him, jerking him out of his horrified staring. He fell back onto his ass he jerked, wincing. He twisted and looked, finding Maria with her blond head turned and pressed into a horrified looking Richard's chest. Her girlfriend, Alendra, was bent over a trash can, puking into it, her hair scarf falling from the tight twist that had kept it on her head. Markus was pressed against the wall, having joined his friends while Alexander wasn't looking. He slid down, his hands pressing against his mouth as he gagged.</p><p>"Cops...We need ta call the cops," Richard finally got out. "The fucking hell?" he gagged.</p><p>Alexander shook his head, black hair whipping around his face. "Not a clue. Is that...that's fucking Kyle."</p><p>"Kyle?" Alendra asked as she wiped her mouth, carefully not looking to the locker just in case. "He's that quarterback, right? But I just saw him at lunch and he's a part of our group, right?"</p><p>"I think..." Markus said, stuttering to a stop as he tore his eyes away. "I don't think that it was just too long ago. No more than minutes before the last bell I would think." He looked down at the floor, forcing himself to think critically. "And whoever did this probably used something to carry...his head so that he wouldn't leave a trail." He swallowed heavily. "Probably a backpack and some plastic bags within so that it didn't look odd."</p><p>"You don't think it could be..." Alendra trailed off. She grimaced and rubbed at her stomach. Richard finally shook his head, fumbling for his phone in his back pocket.</p><p>"I don't know. But I'm really hoping not," Richard said as he turned himself and Maria away, quickly dialing the police. Alexander once more turned to the locker and stared at Kyle's face. A droplet of blood fell off of the edge of the shelf, stretching out slow as molasses before it broke off and joined the puddle that was at the bottom of the locker with a 'plip' that echoed in his head...</p><p>Alexander gasped and shot up in his sleeping bag, his eyes jerking around the tent. He twisted around and checked on his friends. Alendra was cuddled down with Maria in their two-person sleeping bag and on their cot near the front of the large tent. Markus had buried himself in his own sleeping bag while Richard was near him and sprawled out on his stomach, half out of his bag, half in and leg falling to the ground. And finally, his eyes landed on Kyle, who was alive and breathing, head still attached.</p><p>He breathed out a sigh of relief.</p><p>"Damn but that was a fucked up dream," he groaned softly before flopping back onto his low cot, rubbing at his face. "What the fuck was that all about? I know for a fact that it was Casey who got killed. Kyle was sick that week and I wasn't the one who found her gutted like a damn fish," he muttered. He shook his head. He looked out of the small screened window in the side of the tent and saw that the sun was starting to brighten. He sighed, knowing that their alarms would be going off soon. "Well no reason to stay in bed. Might as well get up."</p><p>He pushed his sleeping bag zipper down, and shoved it off of him, standing up. He slipped his shoes on before stretching with a groan and moving to step outside. He turned to the left, frowning as he stared at the gates that they had driven over the night before, eyebrows furrowing. "The fucking hell!" he yelped.</p><p>The gates that they had driven over the night before, the hinges having rusted away, were now brand new and closed, trapping them within the estate lands that they had come to check out for their college history project. Alendra shuffled to stand next to him, her sleepy look disappearing as her mouth fell open.</p><p>"What the flying fuck?"</p><p>Alexander idly wondered if what he was seeing was a part of the reason why he had dreamed what he had before he shuddered as a cold chill ran down his back.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Here Little Human (horror)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title: Here Little Human</p><p>Word Count: 975</p><p>Story World: Retail and Supernatural (Starts with Bad Dog, WIP)</p><p>Characters: Idiot Villain</p><p>Prompt: stalking animal</p><p>Warnings: kidnapping</p><p>*~*~*~*</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>It</em> was following him. Again. That <em>creature.</em></p><p>Always with eyes that glowed in the dark and a low growling purr. At one time he would have called this thing a cat, but since he had started down his path...he couldn't rightly call it a cat any more.</p><p>Swallowing heavily, he worked to lay out the protective runes along the door of his room, working to stop the creature from coming at him again. <em>He</em> had told him how best to protect his home. How to protect himself against the creature. But still he wasn't sure if he was doing it right. He couldn't exactly remove the book downstairs from it's alter that he had set it up on for such a stupid reason. Especially since if he did, he would have to restart the current round of rituals all over again.</p><p>And getting some for the damn plats for the first ritual were a bit of a bitch to get, to be nice about it.</p><p>Shaking his head, he muttered the right words and watched as the runes glowed before they faded away, making him breathe out a sigh of relief. "Safe." He twitched. "For now." He looked over at the woman who was resting on his bed, a drip keeping her hydrated and fed. "I think it wants you. But why?" he asked her. She said nothing, the bit of purple hair laying by her nose fluttering with each of her breaths. Her makeup had long been smudged, looking a lot like she had been partying instead of trying to get away from his kidnapping. "Two days. Two <em>fucking</em> days of being stalked by that <em>think...</em>"</p><p>He stood up and stalked around the rather large master bedroom he had holed up in. He had hidden away in his family's old house. He still owned it, but he couldn't really live in it after it had been closed after their murders. He had never really gone through the process of it getting declared a cleared murder scene, and it worked for the moment. He had had to move from the last house after the last batch of rituals, finding that the amount of death he had done calling some not so good attention.</p><p>Especially since the nun that he had chosen for that last ritual had turned out to have a history of prostitution and had turned to being a Jesus Bride. He had postponed that last step to the next moon, but he had gotten rid of her, pack up his shit and get out of town when her disappearance had been found out about. He had also quit his part time job with a need to head back home for a while.</p><p>He had found that the master had a fireplace that was still working perfectly and a bathroom that had pipes that got rid of water so he could take baths with hot water heated over the fire. He had more than enough room for a study area and a small kitchen set up with camping gear near the balcony of the bedroom. He had gone down to the basement, which had been his bitch sisters area, and used it for his alter, smirking as he had painted the walls with the right marks.</p><p>He tossed a sneer at the woman on the bed as he continued to pace, shaking his head free of the thoughts. "I need to figure out what to do with you now. You aren't the right one. But if I try to just dump your dead body somewhere, that thing will probably attack me," he grumped. "You had to be friends with that fucking <em>user</em> didn't you? Someone who remembers the <em>Before</em>. Fuck my life up."</p><p>He turned around and stared at the balcony door that he had closed against the winter coldness. He shuddered at the eyes that glowed from outside of the window. He nearly ran over to the door and pulled the curtains closed. He would use his portable charger to make sure that his phone didn't die and set an alarm instead of using the sun to wake up. He decided that he didn't want to see the eyes all night, light be damned.</p><p>Pacing the room again, he checked the nutrition bag that made sure that the woman he had currently didn't die because she didn't have the needed nutrients.</p><p>He went back to pacing, knowing that he would need to do something with her very soon. He was starting to consider where to drop her off, knowing that his usual dropping off point was a bad idea, but he still had to move fast. As soon as the sun rose, and the <em>creature</em> left for the day, he would get rid of her and hope that the beast that followed him was there for her, and not for some other reason.</p><p>Such as a revenge plot by one of the women that he had kidnapped and used in the rituals.</p><p>Pushing aside that thought, he finally figured out where it would be best to drop her off, deciding to go with a small clinic. It never opened until nine, and the people who worked there never arrived until after eight to set things up. With the sunrise closer to five than eight, he figured he would have enough time in gathering her up after giving her a shot, carry her out to his car, and drop her off before he ditched the car after cleaning it out.</p><p>Writing it down as he paced, he finally sat down before the fireplace, battery powered lantern close as he looked to the covered windows. He wondered if this was the night that the creature that growled like a cat but wasn't a cat would finally try to attack him, runes of protections or not.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Office Shenanigans</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title: Office Shenanigans</p><p>Word Count: 1140</p><p>Story World: Retail and Supernatural (Starts with Bad Dog, WIP)</p><p>Prompt: Flying objects</p><p>Warnings: language, mad ghost</p><p>*~*~*~*</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ducking under the flying coffee cup, empty thankfully, Brinda cursed softly and held up her binder to smack the not so empty carafe that came at her next out of the way. "Okay! Who pissed off the ghost?" she called out in complaint. "I know that I didn't. I already left something shiny this morning."</p><p>Markus stood up to look over the edge of his cubicle, wearing a safety helmet and glasses. "I think it was Maria. She said that ghosts have no power and that ours was the weakest. I don't think that she knows exactly why we have a ghost," he admitted as he ducked under a flying binder.</p><p>"And where did she fuck off to?" Brinda asked, handing over the binder she had used to bat at the carafe, taking a new one from Markus in return.</p><p>"Where else do you think? On her lunch break down the street," he said. He sat back down as Brinda went back to her own work cubicle, wondering why she had agreed to take a job in an office building again.</p><p>Sighing, she remembered why. The paranormal company that she was building with her brother and her best friend was still in its infancy and she wanted to bring in some extra money. Alex and Brian were both doing the same to help pay for everything that they had to, and she hated to be doing nothing. Since she had an accounting degree with a business minor, she was using it to work part time. The owner had agreed to her working Tuesdays to Thursdays, and every other Friday. If she logged the hours that he wanted from her, he didn't care.</p><p>She knew that half of her co-workers only came in once a day to use their workstations to print things out, gather assignments, go to meetings, and get mail. She was one of six who liked to work in the building. And thus, one of six who dealt with their office ghost. She knew that at one time he had been a worker who had been killed down on the first floor before the guard station, a casualty of a shooter who had a bone to pick with another office.</p><p>The asshole had ended up tasered, but it had been too late for the man who had loved the business and had stuck around after he had died. His daughter often came by on occasion with new pictures for his alter, using a digital photo frame to display them and to rotate out the gifts to him. The other things that they left for him were then placed into a box to wait their turn again.</p><p>The owner had even created a rule book regarding the supernatural part of their world, an entire section dedicated on how to treat him and how to deal with him in a respectful way. Brinda sighed as she placed her new project binder down before her on the L-shaped desk. "I hate that fucking woman. Why did I agree to train her?" she asked huffily, shaking her head.</p><p>"Because you need the extra money?" came a soft voice from the cubicle on her left. The very cubicle that Leon had worked in and now held his alter. Looking up, she smiled at the ghost, noting that he had placed a fresh, hot cup of coffee down on her desk in apology for almost hitting her with a carafe and cup.</p><p>"True." She tilted her head to squint at him. "Did she really piss you off that much?" she asked him softly. The figure nodded his head. She idly mused that unlike most spirits, there wasn't much to his form: mostly a lot of whispy smoke in a vaguely human shape. She knew from her research that he would get stronger through the years, strong enough to have his actual shape, but for the moment, he only had enough power for the whispy smoke and being able to toss things around.</p><p>And when he wasn't mad at a person, make a very good cup of coffee.</p><p>Picking up the cup, she sipped before letting out a moan in appreciation. "Oh, I did need that, dear. Thank you. Did you like the pressed penny I left? I got it on the trip to Arizona. I visited one of the museum jails there," Brinda said, smiling.</p><p>Leon tilted his head, a bare hint of smile coming through the smoke of his form. "I did. Thank you. It's one that I don't have," he said, the two looking to the hanging flat pennies. "I'll have my daughter punch a hole into it so that I can hang it, if you do not mind."</p><p>"Not in the least. I didn't have the five cents to include a hole in it, but that round section on top is for that as I found out," Brinda said. "You go rest. You can torment the stupid bitch when she gets back," she teased. The hint of a smile was back before he disappeared, most likely going to rest in his alter.</p><p>Shaking her head, she turned back to her work, taking a few minutes to send an e-mail to their department head about Maria. She warned her that if she didn't do something about her that Leon would be doing so. And they couldn't afford to get a new worker if he gave her a concussion again.</p><p>With her duty to warn done, she returned to her binder and started to shift through the paperwork with pen and highlighter, making notes as she highlighted various things. She smirked when the screech of anger and pain floated through the room as she was typing her changes into the main file. Maria, the woman who had dared to insult Leon and ghosts in general, went streaking past, a stain of coffee covering her front.</p><p>Brinda didn't doubt that the coffee that had spilled on her had been steaming hot and Leon had waited for the right moment. She got a text from the head of the department saying that she was taking Maria to the local hospital to deal with the coffee burns. They weren't horrible, mostly surface burns, but they still needed to be attended to.</p><p>Brinda snorted, put her phone onto the charging ring, and turned back to her work, humming softly to the song that played in the discreetly hidden headphones. She smirked at the chorus and snickered. "Time for an exorcism indeed. An exorcism of idiots," she drawled. She sent Alex and Brian a text telling them what was going on in the office. Alex sent her an emot that was rolling it's eyes, while Brian sent a recording of himself cackling and falling off a surface while Alex fondly called him an idiot in the background.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. A Peek Into a Hidden World</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title: A Peek Into a Hidden World</p><p>Word Count: 1850</p><p>Story World: Roses and Books (to come WIP/Rewrite/Edit)</p><p>Prompt: Cameras</p><p>Warnings: past death, murder, langauge</p><p>*~*~*~*</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Staring at the camera that he had found in a tote, Rose frowned as he flipped it around in his hands. "This come from the last house that you owned?" he asked. His lover looked over his pile of boxes and grunted.</p><p>"Yeah. It was a big ass house that was in the middle of nowhere. Nearly a mansion but it was short a few feet," Lex replied as he continued to dig through his boxes, separating things out. "Each time that I buy a house as is, there tends to be a lot of shit to go through. I usually pack up the small things, check out the furniture, and if it happens to be good enough or salvaged, I'll sell it off. Or keep it for the house depending on what I'm doing with it. One place is now a museum. Pulls in good money to," he said. He repacked several things into a new tote.</p><p>Rose made a thoughtful sound. "I found an old camera. I think that I can probably get the film processed," he said finally. Looking into the box, he found a camera case, finding a recorder in it, the tapes still in it, along with four extras. "I think that I have an old video player at home," he said. He looked over them. "I'm actually kind of curious about this stuff," he admitted.</p><p>Lex looked over his boxes again and shrugged. "Go ahead and do that. I know that you tend to be curious about the history of the town. Are you working on another book?" he asked.</p><p>Rose nodded. "Yeah, the publishers want to see something new from me. I'm working on a haunted history book this time instead of a flower book." He looked up and smiled. "Starting with the history of us and our sister city."</p><p>He dug around in the tote some more, finding a matching camping bag and some other things, dragging them out to lay on the floor. He tossed the bag of chips and cereal bars after he checked the 'sale-by' date. He packed the rest into another tote with a 'take home' sticker on it. "Since you flipped that one house that has that history, I'm hoping that I'll find something of the families left over and not in the museum for the book."</p><p>Lex grunted. He walked around with a dolly and two other totes on it. "You'll have access to everything in here since I've never really had any chance on getting through most of it. My writing and flipping really took a lot of my time," he admitted.</p><p>Rose chuckled and closed the top once he had made sure that he had gone through the boxes that were in his pile and he had what he wanted. "Yeah, I wouldn't doubt it," he said, putting the tote's top on it. "Okay, let's get going."</p><p>Once at home, the tote was put into Rose's office and forgotten about for close to a month. Rose lost himself in researching other parts of his book with an uptick in the gardening as his business flourished, while Lex got lost in editing his next book. One day while he was cleaning the house and ending in his office one day while it poured rain outside, Rose found the tote and made a thoughtful sound.</p><p>"Oh! I forgot about this," Rose mused, standing up with the tote, carrying it over to where he had two long folding tables set up. Placing the box down, he pulled on gloves and laid out a plastic sheet, opening the box top. He started to lay out the tapes, the camera bag and the backpack onto the sheets. "I should record this."</p><p>Muttering lowly, he loaded a new memory card into his recorder, hooked up the headset to it, and pressed record.</p><p>"It is March fourth, twenty-nineteen," he started, checking the time on his phone. "It is two PM. A month ago, I had gone to the barn that was turned into a storage area that Lex's parents let him use to go through things. We have since gotten through about half of the items there, but there were some items from what I have learned was the Karagraham house. He had brought the house and flipped it into a museum, keeping some of the items within. The Karagraham House museum is in the next city to us, so it's not really something that I really thought about researching but it is connected to us," he said, looking at the items.</p><p>Once they were laid out, he started to list off the items, starting with the tapes.</p><p>"Eight small recorder tapes. There is a larger loading tape deck to play the recorder tapes on a VHS. They look to be in good shape. The camera bag is in good enough shape for being stuffed in a box for close to a year. It holds a camera with four more tapes, including one in the camera. There are four batteries and a charger with four more tapes in a side pocket. There's also a charger that would work with a charging port in a car. The backpack holds nothing amazing," he said. "I tossed the food that I found in the storage unit. It has a journal that looks to be an urban explorers journal with details on places they've been. I've also found a wallet. I'll need to look up who this person is and see if I can't find them so I can maybe return this stuff."</p><p>He went through the rest of the bag, laying out a heavy-duty flashlight, a dozen batteries for said flashlight, and flashlight bulbs. Old tissues, toilet paper, and three rolls of film were found and laid out. With the backpack done, he turned back to the camera case to make sure that he had dug through every pocket.</p><p>"I have found a rather nice film camera and four rolls of used film. I'll have to get them processed," he noted. He laid them out after checking to see if each film had been used. "I'll do that once I'm done checking the rest of the pockets. There seem to be a few hidden ones." He found two more of the film containers, laying them out to the side. Fully done with everything, he made a few more notes and turned off his recorder, putting it to the side and stripping off his gloves.</p><p>Wiping the film rolls and tapes with a dry rag, he called out to Lex that he was going to get some film processed and the video tapes put onto disc. It took him four hours to get into town to get to his friend who processed film and video for a living, and then get back home after some food shopping. Each picture envelope was thick and took up a bit of room in his smaller backpack along with the five different discs for the video.</p><p>Lex texted him, telling him that he had found two more tapes in another box he had brought home and about what was on the videos. He had found out that they had been taken of the house before he had bought the house. So far, there wasn't a lot that he could tell from the videos, mostly b-roll that he had watched. He figured that it was someone connected to a documentary that hadn't gone through.</p><p>Rose got home with Chinese and a fresh six pack of cold beer bottles for them, putting the rest of the stuff that he had bought away. He took the food, the pictures, and two bottles of beer out into the living room, finding Lex waiting with plates and silverware. He sat down, and while Lex dished up food, he laid out the pictures on the large coffee table. "There's something really weird with some of these," he said, taking the plate and shoving a bite of cashew chicken into his mouth.</p><p>Lex made a curious sound, muffled around his mouthful of eggroll as he looked at the pictures that Rose had chosen from the ones that had been laid out. He chewed as he studied them, swallowing before he talked. "It's the fogginess to them, right?" he asked. Rose nodded. Looking at them, he pointed out that in a few there was an almost solid fog streak.</p><p>Rose frowned. "Did you have any trouble ever photographing that place?" he asked. Lex shook his head. "Odd."</p><p>They continued to work their way through the pictures, taking their time between bites or talking about this photo or that photo before Rose came across one last picture. This one was different though to their eyes. Where the others had strange streaks of fog, the occasional curl of smoke like substance, this one had a face. It was from the film in the camera, the pictures of that of the house.</p><p>Staring at it, Rose's eyebrows shot upwards as he put his place of mostly eaten food to the side and stood. He jogged into his office, finding his magnifying glass that he used when he was inspecting flowers and old pictures of gardens of old estates around the city. He jogged back in, Lex frowning at the picture with the face. Sitting down, he picked up the picture and carefully used the magnifying glass.</p><p>"That...yeah, that is a face," Rose said, frowning over at his lover. "They look like Marianne but softer," he mused as he went back to looking at the picture.</p><p>Lex took the picture and magnifying glass, also studying the face with a frown on his face. "Didn't Marianne tell you that her family was a bastard line of the Karagrahams in your interview?" he asked.</p><p>"Yeah. On her father's side if I remember correctly. The youngest sister had a lover who ditched her the moment that she became pregnant. Gave her kid up after she left to have it. The kid was given over to their grandparents on their father's side. They lied that their son got married on his way to the War and she died giving birth. Luckily for them, they did live in another state and city, so their lies weren't ever discovered outside of immediate family."</p><p>Lex grunted. He sat up. "I think I've seen her face. She looks like the mother of the bastard child. At least the one who is thought to be their mother," he said finally. "Maybe you can dig in a little more and do a full history on that whole thing? Marianne did say she wouldn't mind working with you if you wanted to write about her family and their ties. This would be an interesting bit of information if we could figure out who took that picture and why they left it in the house."</p><p>Rose nodded, gathered the pictures, putting the ones with odd things into another envelope before dropping them to the table. He smirked at his lover. "Let's leave that for later though. And just enjoy the rest of our night. Forget about creepy pictures and needing to find people." Lex laughed and hauled Rose into his lap, kissing him, forgetting about the pictures for the time being.</p><p>At least until Rose's research found out that the explorer who had left their bag behind had disappeared while on the property a year before Lex had bought the house. </p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Leaving the House</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title: Leaving the House</p><p>Word Count: 1,481</p><p>Story World: Retail and Supernatural (Starts with Bad Dog, WIP)</p><p>Characters: Brinda, Alex, Brian</p><p>Prompt: Empty house for sell with demonic presence out for human</p><p>Warnings: language</p><p>*~*~*~*</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Alex, are you sure about this?" Brinda bounced on the balls of her feet, staring up at the house. "Isn't this that one..."</p><p>"Yeah." Alex tucked his hands into his pockets as he looked over to Brian, finding him sitting on the roof of their truck as he smoked a cigarette and stared up at the house. "Once we clear it out, I'm sure that it'll be fine and it'll make a good home, not to mention headquarters for our work. Especially if <em>we </em>clear it out and find the portal to close it, we'll end up with a massive price break on it." Brinda sighed as she crossed her arms, crucifix jingling around her neck.</p><p>"You're so damn lucky that this gig pays me so damn well," she muttered, giving him a side eye. Alex snorted as he dropped a duffle bag onto the ground, kneeling to dig around in it. He pulled out a large bottle of holy water, a metal stick with a metal ball attached to it, small holes covering the top half, and a small incense burner that hung on a chain. He handed them over and then a bundle of sage, matches and a shell.</p><p>Brinda sighed and squatted down with her aspergillum in hand, laying the rest of the items out. She took the three items and placed the bundle of sage into the shell. Striking the match, she lit the sage, taking the offered feather, brushing the smoke over each item, saying the words of blessing while Alex laid out his own set, doing the same blessing. Watching as the sage went up in one last puff, she smiled at the blessing that had been approved.</p><p>She took the smaller bundle of safe and opened the burner, placing it onto the porcelain disk, lighting it before putting the top back on. Making sure that it was secure and was only lightly smoking for the moment, she turned to the rest.</p><p>Opening the aspergillum, she sighed at the sight of the Galeic cross that was resting within it, attached to little hooks that held it in place. She groaned, finding that her bad feeling was getting worse. "Really? This is the one that you're going to have me wield?" she asked.</p><p>Alex smirked as he held up his slightly larger aspergillum. While hers was just a ball that she filled and flicked, one of the special creations that her mother had created due to magic induced need, Alex's was the form of a brush. Both came with a matching asperisporium.</p><p>Brinda called them both the "Holy Water Bucket of Blessing and Demon's Bane".</p><p>All of the items they had were created in certain ways so that it was hard for any of the holy water that they held to tip out. Mostly the asperisporiums' with weighted bottoms. "Yep. I need you to come in after me. You'll be dealing with the leftovers of whatever I shove out," he said. He shook his head and made sure that the holy water within his own asperisporium was ready.</p><p>Brinda grumbled as she did the same, arranging it so that she had the pole that came from the bottom of the bucket in her hand, keeping it steady. The burner chain was wrapped around her arm and sliding down the rest of the pole, swinging just under the inch of pole under her hand. She picked up her aspergillum and nodded at him. "Alright, you asshole, let's go get us a damn house. We starting from the front and moving our way back then up and finally down?" she asked.</p><p>"We'll be leaving a very narrow way of getting the entity out of the house. It's a U-Shape with the foray a straight shot from the basement and stairs. We'll need to chase it upstairs and then out from the basement if it doesn't actually just leave out of the front door," Alex said, holding his items, swirling the brush in the holy water. The water within went milky before clearing up again, showing them both that it was ready.</p><p>Brinda sighed, nodding and doing the same with her own, following him. The first thing that she noticed was the absolute stench that flooded the house, settling deep. It was like sulphur that had been laid on rotten eggs with a cloying underlayer of decaying flesh. She wrinkled her nose and tried not to gag as Alex turned into the living room first, sleeves pushed back and Galiec crosses present above the Greek crosses on his arms.</p><p>The various bits of fabric that covered furniture and windows moved in a wind that wasn't there as he started to bless the living room in a language that he couldn't pinpoint.</p><p>To her, it always sounded as if there were many different languages that were overlaying themselves, creating a soothing melody in her ears. But to anything with no good in them, demons and creatures that wished to harm instead of care, it was as if they had been tied down and tortured to hear it.</p><p>And this time was no different. A wailing went up as the living room cleared of the scent, leaving only a faint trace of it, the oppressive feeling living and letting her breath. The doors that connected the living room and the next room slammed shut behind the creature.</p><p>Alex rolled his eyes, complained about having to deal with such melodramatic demons, painted a cross made of holy water on each entry way into the living room, and opened the door to the next room. As he went to work on that room, Brinda did her own, smaller, blessings, calling on the Gods and Goddesses of the Old to bless and cleanse the house from the Evil that had lingered in the house for so long.</p><p>She smiled and giggled when the scent of cinnamon and vanilla filled the air, telling her that her favorite Goddess had answered her call. She was just glad that the Old Beings didn't hate the way that the Catholic Church had turned so many of their symbols into symbols of the New Religions. they rarely cared as long as at the end you provided them their proper dues after calling them for a blessing.</p><p>Brinda mentally went over what she had packed into the cooler and was rather glad that she had grabbed a good bottle of red wine and the better chocolate that she had packed with the fresh fruit and handy crafts.</p><p>Shaking her head, Brinda walked into the next room, doing the same blessing as the last one, following in Alex's footsteps, listening to the ever-increasing screams of anger as the demon was forced to remove itself from the house. They worked their way through the first floor, up to the second and all the rooms there, up into the attic, and then down into the basement, making sure that every little nook and cranny was cleared.</p><p>As the creature was forced out of the front door and into a mystical trap that Brian had laid outside of the door, it screeched out that it would be back as the mirror folded back into itself. Brian just sighed and placed it into an intricately carved box, shutting the lid.</p><p>"There's a room that was sealed all up," he said as Alex sat down on the front lawn, breathing out. They watched as his incense burner stopped smoking just as Brinda stepped out to do the last of the blessing.</p><p>"Yeah?" Alex asked him. Brian nodded and handed over the printout. Alex looked around him to see that Brian had hooked up his computer to an outside power outlet before looking down. He hummed and pulled out his phone to call the retailer while looking over the printout. "Hey, yeah. It's Alex. I'm done with the cleansing, but I'm going to have to pull a wall down to get to a sealed room. I'm also going to have to destroy a bit of floor and pull up about ten feet of foundation and dirt," he told the woman. Brian raised an eyebrow when the woman asked why. "Cause the body that is holding the portal open. And I need to submerge it into salt and holy water for the next ten years. I'll also need to call a priest friend."</p><p>Brian snorted as Alex took a pen and wrote down the information that she gave him. The people accepted the smaller bid for the house right then, nearly two grand under what they were asking for, and under five grand than their budget. Alex sighed, stood, and brushed off his pants. "Got a house?" he asked finally.</p><p>"Got a house. Call our friend, would ya?" Alex drawled.</p><p>Brian rolled his eyes with a smirk. "Yes, sir," he drawled, ignoring the muttered 'brat' from his boyfriend. </p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Bookish Information (horror?)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title: Bookish Information</p><p>Word Count: 1162</p><p>Story World: Remember Us</p><p>Prompt: thumps</p><p>Warnings: dead bodies, murder talked about.</p><p>*~*~*~*</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Alendra looked up from where she had been pouring over a large tome and squinted at the room around her. It was still dark outside, still in that odd twilight that they had been in for the last day since they had found the mummified body of a baby. The library that they found seemed to hold every book that had come into the house was lit up with candles that were stored in a room to the side and their rechargeable lanterns. She knew that Kyle was somewhere in the library.</p><p>Looking around, she found him moving to his own seat and laying a large tome of his own down, frowning as he read a page in it.</p><p>Tipping her head back, she swore that she had heard someone walking slowly behind her. Turning to look over her shoulder, she scanned the area, finding nothing but a large open space with furniture that had been destroyed in what they guessed was a fight. The long windows let in the feeble twilight light in from the outside. She turned back to the book and managed to focus for a few more minutes before a thud of a book landing on the floor made her jump and jerk around. Kyle jerked from where he was sitting and stood, looking over to where a book was laying on the floor.</p><p>They stared at it.</p><p>"Did you..." Kyle trailed off, unsure on how to ask what he wanted to ask.</p><p>She shook her head. "No. I didn't even see it when I was looking at that spot a few minutes ago. And I sure as hell didn't move it," she said. She shuddered softly, biting her bottom lip in thought. "I'm not sure what I need to think."</p><p>Kyle swallowed, standing up and walking around the table to the book. He knelt and carefully picked it up. "January second, nineteen-fourteen, to January first, nineteen-sixteen," he read, frowning as he stood up. He walked over and placed the book down onto the table next to Alendra. Flipping it open, he caressed the careful, looping letters. "Jillian Marquis nee Vela. Didn't we find all of her journals on the journal shelf except this one?" he asked.</p><p>Alendra nodded after checking the list of journals that they had scanned through already. "Yeah. It was the last two years that she was alive if I'm remembering correctly. Her death date was noted as February of nineteen-sixteen," she said. She flipped through her hand-written notes. "I kind of wondered where this journal had gone off to. But it's here now."</p><p>Kyle hummed. He walked down to where he had been working and found his own notes. "No idea where it was, but her husband's journal said that she had gotten really sick around that time. Vomiting, unable to eat anything. Blood in her vomit. Some of it brightly colored, as if freshly spilled. Some of it chunked up like ground tea leaves," he said, reading off the information. "I think that she was killed if she was vomiting blood. I'm thinking something that would erode the stomach lining away mixed with low doses of arsenic. If I remember my history, it was easy to find the plants and arsenic at that time if you knew what to look for."</p><p>Alendra pulled a face and shuddered slightly. "Do you think that she's one of the people that we have to solve the murder for to get out of here?" she asked. Kyle sighed and nodded. He pulled up a list of four other names and typed it out.</p><p>"Yeah, I kind of do. It looks like we're going to have to go through the last couple journals of hers and find out who she talks about in a negative way. Then we'll make a list of people to visit their rooms. It's like the ghosts are intent on making us solve as many of these murders as they can get us to before we're allowed to leave," he complained.</p><p>Alendra reached over, patting his arm with a smile. "At the very least, we're not always stuck here reading books. Doesn't Richard and Alexander have Karen and Michael Conner's case right now?" she asked.</p><p>Kyle nodded. "Yeah. On the left side of the mansion in the Yellow Wing. Markus and Maria are in the Gold Wing going over the Branson Marquis case. The great-great grandnephew of Jillian," he said. We just have to wait for them to finish off those two. If I remember correctly, Jillian and her husband were in the Gold Wing. I think that we need to focus on them so we can solve her case. Or so we can get some rest before digging through the wing. Whatever happens first."</p><p>"I think that getting some sleep will be a good idea actually," Alendra stated, shaking her head. "Seriously, who would strangle a kid though?" she groaned.</p><p>Kyle winced, rolling his shoulders. "No idea, but it's nice that the family made everyone have journals to practice their writing, reading and comprehension skills. Otherwise, I don't think that we'd have as much information as we do now," he said, shaking his head. "And we're lucky that he was thirteen instead of three to ten," he continued. Sighing, he flopped down into a chair, slowly stretching. "I think that there are a couple that will have all of the information we need in their diaries though."</p><p>"Which ones do you think that we should pull?" Alendra asked. She stood to start rearranging the books that she had been going through for their project, intent on focusing on Jillian's and her husband's journals.</p><p>"Might try Curtis and his wife. It looked as if they seemed rather paranoid after the death of their first daughter, so they took to recording everything from what I was able to learn by reading them. And Kendal and her husband. They were shot while out on the property, so it might be that they had an idea who was after them. I really want to know why they're forcing us to figure all of this shit out." Kyle groaned as he let his head drop onto the table.</p><p>"I think it might be because once we're free, we'll be writing essays about each of the cases and telling their stories," Alendra mused. She smiled at her friend. "Alexander has been taking so much video for his Youtube channel that he'll have enough for something like eight or nine videos minimum. And that's just talking about the basics. You have your blog and professional essays that have been getting published. And I have a history book that I've been playing with lately. Us writing this will hopefully allow them to rest."</p><p>"Right. As long as we can <em>actually</em> figure all of this shit out," Kyle drawled. The two shared a small smile before going to gather the journals that they figured would help them with their case.</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Hidden Secrets (disturbing, horror)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Title: Hidden Secrets</p><p>Word Count:</p><p>Story World: Retail and Supernatural</p><p>Prompt: hidden rooms</p><p>Warnings: dead bodies, murder talked about.</p><p>*~*~*~*</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title: Hidden Secrets</p><p>Word Count:</p><p>Story World: Retail and Supernatural</p><p>Prompt: hidden rooms</p><p>Warnings: dead bodies, murder talked about.</p><p>*~*~*~*</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The door had been nailed shut and hidden behind a new wall for a reason.</p><p>And for a very good reason as he was finding out.</p><p>He stared at the bodies that were piled on the floor, making him swallow the bile that was working its way up his throat. "Houses upon houses. Cemeteries and funeral homes. All of that and never once have I seen something like this," Alex groaned.</p><p>Brian gagged before the spun around and staggered out of the room that they had just found while pulling down wallpaper. They had officially gotten the keys a week ago and had started to rip things out or up, wanting to get everything ready so that they could move in. Start work without having to worry about renovations on top of everything else. "Well, I'm guessing this is where they stored the victims that fed that thing," he called from the living room as the window protested being shoved open.</p><p>Alex swallowed again, rubbing his lips as he followed his partner. "Yep. That was disgusting," he said as he flopped down to sit next to Brian. His lover was leaning out of one of the few screen-free windows.</p><p>"That's one way of describing it. How many bodies do you think there are in there?" Brian asked, pulling back to look at Alex.</p><p>Alex sighed and rubbed at his face. "A dozen. At the very least," he finally said, pulling out his phone and dialing the one detective that they all trusted. "Hey, Kran. I got an issue with my new house...No. More like a dozen or more bodies, some rather..." He wrinkled his nose at the thought of the room. "Fresh is a good word." He stopped and let the man curse up a blue streak, smirking. "Yeah. I suggest that you get a few dozen biohazard bags, someone used to dealing with gooey bodies and nasty situations, and a lot of SD cards for the cameras," he drawled.</p><p>He listened as Kran asked something, Brian tilting his head, catching the words. "It's not as if we're sleeping here right now. Too much work to do. We haven't even gotten into the kitchen and some of the plumbing still needs to be taken care of," he replied. Alex relayed that answer for him. "I take it that we're going to be stuck in the apartment for a while longer?" he asked once Alex had given Kran the address and hung up.</p><p>"Just for about a week or so longer if I'm thinking right. Since we know how the house worked for so long between our research into it and what the past owners who escaped have said, it's likely they'll exam the bodies. But in the long run it'll be stated that the victims were sacrifices," Alex said, rubbing at his face. "I don't think I want to remember that room either. We'll have to make sure that Brinda doesn't get to it until we've cleaned, bleached and drenched that room in holy water."</p><p>Brian groaned. "I'm just glad that I do have my experience with dead bodies," he said, rubbing at his face. "And some nasty shit at that."</p><p>"Yeah, working in a morgue is like that. You tend to see the worse of the worse come in, alongside with the saddest," Alex replied. He reached out to pat the back of Brian's calf. "Go ahead and move our shit into the garage. When we're allowed back in, I want it here and ready for us. I'll make sure to go get industrial strength cleaners and holy water for that room. And full body suits for us." He rubbed at his head. "I'm kind of surprised that we didn't catch that room when going through."</p><p>"Did you see the wallboard that we had to pull off? It's only because you hate wallpaper so much that we found out that it was there and that it wasn't natural to the house," Brian said, sitting next to his boyfriend. "Not to mention that it holds the bodies of the demon's victims. You think that they got free of his hold?" he asked.</p><p>Alex tilted his head back to rest against the wall. "Yeah. I think that when we cut the ties that were holding it here, feeding it, it's hold on the souls would have been broken along with it's connections. Now it's just a matter of getting any lingering souls to leave or give us enough information for them to leave knowing that whoever gave them over will get their ass kicked. If the idiots aren't already dead," he said. "I'm hoping that I can get to do that soon to be truthful. I'll be calling in Marrian and have her talk to them after another blessing sweep. It should calm them down enough for her to do it without getting overwhelmed."</p><p>Brian huffed out a laugh before he nodded as the sound of a van pulling up to the curb came through the window. Twisting around to look out of the window, he saw that it was just one of the three forensic vans and a plain clothes cop car. "They're here," he said, pushing to stand up. Alex grunted and pushed himself off the floor to, heading out to meet Kran and the others.</p><p>Alex was far from surprised to find that Kran had printed out the blueprints of the house from the day that it had been built until the present-day layout. With the blueprints, they were able to find two more rooms that had been hidden.</p><p>One was more of a storage room: Alex threatened to sue if the items were removed until he had time to cleanse them properly and find out if they needed to be returned. The other room was a ritual room. One of the newbies were sent to collect the evidence within and take pictures with his mentor carefully watching over him.</p><p>Three hours later and the teams were nearly done with their collecting. They were down to scraping the walls and floor for whatever bits they could take up without compromising any evidence. Alex and Brian locked up the house after they had packed up, leaving the cleaning supplies and their building supplies they were using to fix things up in the garage. They then locked the garage down and armed the alarm.</p><p>Alex muttered and complained about having to buy a power washer to get all the blood cleaned up in the rooms, just glad that they were sealed concrete. Brian mused as he loaded up their truck that the body room had probably been the laundry room at one time since their current one was right above it. His lover groaned and made him drive them back to their apartment so he could rent a high-powered power washer in a few weeks.</p><p>Kran shook his head, got into his own car, and headed back to his station. He told his partner that he had to find friends who didn't create new paperwork for him nearly every time that they saw each other.</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Looking For Them</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title: Looking For Them</p><p>Word Count: 1076</p><p>Story World: Remember Us World</p><p>Prompt: Lost, Forums</p><p>Warnings: nothing</p><p>*~*~*~*</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Are you sure about this, Brandly?" Detective Brandly looked up from where he had been working with the desktop of one of the missing college students. Two weeks before, they had gone missing and no one had any idea of where they were.</p><p>Detective Kran, Brandly's partner, raised an eyebrow at him with a smile. "Yeah, I am," Brandly replied. "We don't have any fucking knowledge as to where they are. Their phones aren't popping up, their GPS doesn't show, and the only communications that we can get at a quick enough point is their computers. We're rather lucky that Mrs. Kandra allowed us to look at her son's computer. I learned that all students in their history class has forums to connect with others for their schoolwork. The teacher will set up the group subsections and allows them to assign their own names as long as he knows them."</p><p>Kran took a seat next to his partner, watching as Brandly turned on the computer and typed in the password that their techs had found in a locked booklet in the dorm room. Watching as the screen loaded, they stared in surprise at the multitude of files that sat on one side of the screen. "Are there any flash drives, memory cards, or something like that?" he asked.</p><p>Brandly pointed to a small blue box to the side. "That is an external drive. They found three of them. One is labeled movies and looks like movies that she downloaded from various services. One is labeled book slash research. And the last one is labeled schoolwork. That one there is the schoolwork one. It seems as if he was seriously paranoid about anything getting lost or needing it for future use. He made copies of everything that he's done since middle school. His mother said that since he started college that he would bring his in-use ones' home and transfer the semester's files to his larger one. If he had a need for a file, he was able to access it remotely."</p><p>Kran blinked at that. Brandly smirked, opening the forum app that he had been told to look for, finding it already logged in. Finding the right forum, he sorted it so that it would go in order from oldest to newest. The first subject was <em>'What to write about'</em> and created by Kyle.</p><p>Opening the subject, he found that it started with Kyle listing subjects that they could choose from and asking what the others wanted to focus on. The resulting conversation was all about the pro's and con's of each subject before they decided to do their mid-term report on myths and legends on the city.</p><p>"It looks like they decided to do myths and legends of the city and start with that one estate way out there," Kran mused. "See? Alendra talks about what she knows about the Estate. A lot of murders and sudden deaths. They all agreed that starting there would be a good idea," he said.</p><p>Brandly nodded his head, looking for the next forum post, which was just a general talk forum. They scanned through the posts, finally finding what they were hoping the kids had talked about. "Shit. They went to the estate," he said, frowning softly at the screen. "You don't think that they actually did go there right?" he asked.</p><p>"I think they did," Kran sighed, his eyes running over the decision that they had come to and the plans. There was a link that moved the conversation to it talking about the trip and found the details they needed.</p><p>"They did tell their friends that they were going to be gone for about four days, remember? Two days traveling, two days there for their recording and research," Brandly read. Kran made notes. "Let's see. They were going to take two vehicles: Alendra's car and Alexander's truck. Alendra would hold her, Maria, and Richard, along with three of their coolers, a lot of water and other drinks. Most of it in her trunk. Alexander would have him and Kyle in his truck, enough food to last more than just the four days, even more water, enough wood to last for a month, their camping gear and more clothes. They planned this out."</p><p>"Didn't Mr. Krin say that his son, Kyle Krin, had an appetite because of his active lifestyle?" Kran asked.</p><p>Brandly looked at his notes and nodded. "So, they were planning to feed a lot of hungry adults barely out of their teens," he said. He shook his head. "At least they were prepared. But we still haven't found a damn thing about them so far. And now we know why there are no leads. I suppose that we're going to have to our own ghost town and check it out. They were talkin' about staying on the estate land as their home base and hike around town. See?" He pointed at the screen at a message. "They have some generators to recharge the off-road electric boards that a few of them bought and their equipment batteries. They made damn well and sure that they had everything for at least two weeks as a safety precaution."</p><p>Kran hummed, standing from the desk. "Welp, looks like I'm going to check out a car. I'll fill the tank and get my cooler to. This is going to be a long ass trip. I'll also talk to the chief and warn him that we're heading out that way," he said.</p><p>Brandly grunted and started to get the forum printed out in full, finding a few large, empty binders. "I'll go get these ready so that we can go over them while we're on the road," he said. "Make sure that you have bullets and extras for your gun. Just in case," he instructed. Kran nodded.</p><p>They split up and headed for their own jobs. Brandly continued to print out each forum post, punching holes into the pages using their extra large three hole puncher and putting the pages into binders. With laptops packed into their bags, he met Kran at the car, putting Kran's into the back. Kran held up the detective card that they could use for their gas while they drove and a hotel room overnight.</p><p>They knew the history and the legends. Knew about the old cases that were connected to the estate. They silently wondered if they were walking into a bloodbath or not.</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Cold Showers (disturbing)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title: Cold Showers</p><p>Word Count: 1144</p><p>Story World: Retail and Supernatural (Starts with Bad Dog, WIP)</p><p>Prompt: revenge</p><p>Warnings: language, murder spoken of in some details. Not a lot. Talk of a guy jacking off</p><p>*~*~*~*</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They knew who they were to go after.</p><p>They could still remember every moment of staring at him as they killed them. They could feel him, tied to him in ways that only Victim and Murderer could be.</p><p>One such spirit was staring at him, having found him once more and settled into a corner to watch him. She was waiting for her fellow Victims to arrive. Her hand came to rest around her neck, feeling the odd way that her head was able to move.</p><p>She could remember that she had been strangled.</p><p>Two of the other Victims had been tied down and slowly cut open until they bled out as sacrifices. Three other Victims had been hung upside down and had their throats sliced so that he could gather their blood. Those three had ended up stuck, watching as he removed their heads and hands to make sure that every bit of blood that could would drip out of their bodies while hanging. She could only guess what kind of anger and anguish that had caused them having to watch it.</p><p>They had been found quickly enough by the Original Victims and brought to the rest of them after he left, disposing of their bodies. They all knew where they were buried and were just waiting to find someone who could speak with them so that they could be found and buried properly. She was one of the ten out of fifteen victims that didn't know where their bodies were. They thought they were in the same area, but not for sure.</p><p>She had tried once to find it by going along the connection she still had with her body and all she could feel was cool, wet soil. She was almost sure that she was buried in the same area as the others though. She could feel them.</p><p>She turned back to the man as he sprawled out on the bed, his body glistening with sweat as his hand worked over his own cock, eyes glued to the porn on the TV. She sneered in disgust at the sight, wanting to do nothing more than to grasp the penis and rip it off before he shoved it down his throat.</p><p>But she hadn't been able to. He was protected by something stronger than them, but they had already been promised that eventually he would slip up and they would be able to get their revenge. A fellow spirit, one who was old, from the time that the Native American tribes wandered America and those from other countries had set foot on the land, had been the one to promise them that. He told them that he had seen tribes who had gotten their revenge on those who had killed them.</p><p>It had not been a pretty sight, and it had been as if they had gained the Blessing of the Gods to tear apart those who had ended their lives. The man had gone back to his home that had a museum standing on the land that he had called his, watching over things while there. A few of the Victims had since gone to speak with the man themselves, coming back with more stories, comparing it to what the Originals had told them.</p><p>But for now, she was watching and waiting from her corner that they claimed as theirs once they had found the home. It was a small home and one of a dozen that he used, but it was the one that he returned to the most often. Mostly whenever he wasn't working on killing more of them and trying to gather the power to open the door.</p><p>Sighing, the puff of breath a cold mist that floats before her face, she gagged as he grunted, spilling over his hand as the climax of the movie happened. "Disgusting," she sneered. She was unsurprised when he bounced out of bed like he hadn't spent the last hour working himself off. He never paid any attention to anything but himself unless he was working. Then he was meticulous in setting down protections and opening himself up to the spiritual world.</p><p>Not that they could truly do much beyond stare at him, just waiting for the moment that he fucked up.</p><p>She followed him into the bathroom and watched as he started his shower. She eyed it before floating closer, her broken neck cracking as she turned her head, finding that the idiot had a slip up. He hadn't marked one of the walls well enough. While she wouldn't be able to attack him personally, not with his marks and bracelets, but she could touch the pipes within the walls.</p><p>Her smirk spread over her face as she reached out, carefully making sure that she wouldn't get stuck by touching a mark and waited until their murderer had stepped under the hot spray of water. They all knew that he hated the cold in any form and loved hot showers or baths. If he could get away with it, he didn't take lukewarm showers or baths, even if he was staying at the home of his family. He would always find a way to make it as hot as he could stand to have it.</p><p>Waiting until he was fully relaxed under the spray, she grasped the pipe and pushed as much cold into it that she had the power to do it. It turned the water freezing cold, but she also made sure she didn't burst the pipe while making the water cold. She may hate the man, but she didn't hold any anger to the landlord. The lady was nice and had to deal with other things.</p><p>The screech of surprise as he tried to scramble back from the sudden needles of freezing cold that hit him. He slipped and slammed into the wall before falling onto his ass as the freezing cold water continued to rain down on him. Enjoying the bit of petty revenge for a few moments, she finally pulled away, finding that she was a bit tired. Breathing out a breath as the water started to warm and fall on the shivering man, she floated away from the shower and settled back into the shadows that wrapped around her like a blanket.</p><p>Cradled by them, she settled back in to rest and wait for the man to come out. Maybe when the others came to take her place, she would be able to share this story of what happened, but currently all she wanted was to rest. He wouldn't be going anywhere that they didn't know about. Not yet.</p><p>After all, he had to be a good little boy for the public and not end up disappearing or moving suddenly. That would bring to much attention to him which would be bad in all aspects.</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0010"><h2>10. All the Words pt 1 (horror, disturbing)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Title: All the Words 1</p><p>Word Count:</p><p>Story World: Various</p><p>Prompt: various</p><p>Warnings: dead bodies, murder talked about, ghosts,</p><p>*~*~*~*</p><p>Notepad:</p><p>She had left her notepad laying out on the desk the night before. Her mostly done notes had been neatly rewritten and highlighted, the notes she had taken in class next to them, waiting to be transferred. But what was making her pause as she climbed down from her bed was the fact that there were new words on them that she knew she hadn't written on the new pages.</p><p>Her roommates had gone out to stay with other friends in another dorm to study for the exams to come, so she had been alone in the room. Alendra swallowed and wondered if something had followed them from the estate.</p><p>Especially when she got up to read what had been written, paling at the "<em>You haven't written my story"</em> in tight cursive. Cursive that she knew very well. She looked to her file cabinet, knowing that she was going to have to print out all her notes, but decided that she should be safe instead of sorry.</p><p>She left her room, using one of the dozen grills that the university provided the dorm room students to burn the pages before having a friend come bless the room.</p><p>She was not going to write about the psychopathic bitch that had possessed her line to kill whoever she felt didn't deserve all that they had in life.</p><p>bone:</p><p>It was old. Discolored with age, turned an almost yellow color but not quite there. It was rounded in parts and straight in others. It had an interesting texture under his touch and made him smile while he remembered just how he had gotten it.</p><p>It was slim and lean, just like the woman who had used it to walk. A nun who had died in a fire; one of the few that hadn't been casualties of said fire. She had tried to get her fellow nuns out of the fire after a fugue state, anger and hatred clouding her mind. When she was unable to and saved, she had felt so despondent that she had killed herself.</p><p>The church had covered it up since before her suicide she had thought herself possessed. The church had just thought she was having a mental break down and promised her that a therapist would see her soon. She had never gotten her confirmation or her therapist before she had taken her own life.</p><p>The sixties and seventies were a great time for mental diagnosis and mental health awareness, but still so bad in so many ways. The church had gone back and forth between a person being possessed and a person having a mental illness so much during that time, that the poor nun had gotten caught in the crossfire.</p><p>He smirked as he smoothed a hand over the bones, feeling the faint carvings of runes and symbolic circles that had been carved onto her very bones over three years. He knew that she had been a chosen sacrifice by the very demon that he now served. It had worked it so that it's power had saturated her bones and muscles and skin.</p><p>He knew that if the church had exhumed her, they would have found her body in near perfect condition beyond a bit of leathering of her skin. He looked over at a patch of said skin, reaching out to trace the faint scarred mark that his master had left on her in those years.</p><p>"Yes, she was just the perfect choice," he cooed, smoothing a bit of the rich auburn hair that he had found in her coffin down. "She will power the last of our rituals perfectly."</p><p>Guitar:</p><p>She really did love her guitar.</p><p>It had been well loved and used during her many years of owning it. She had restrung it many times and the body had been carefully cared for. The neck had a few parts replaced over the years, but that hadn't taken away the fact that it was still loved and was a gift from her father.</p><p>He had taught her how to play on it when she had been but a young girl-child. The years of blood, sweat and tears going into leaving her with a composing career left her with happy, fond memories. She had left that life behind when her fingers had started to hurt more and more, arthritis settling in without a care to her wishes or desires.</p><p>By then she had been well into her fifties, more than ready and able to retire. Her investments were doing lovely things after all, and her retirement fund was quite large by then. Her husband had been smart in the way that he had made money himself, and they still had royalties from the music that she had worked on or composed herself for various companies. Not to mention his own royalties.</p><p>But now, after so many years, she was alone, her husband gone for three years, leaving her alone in their small townhouse. Their children had long moved out, going out to build their own careers and show their brilliance to the world. And her guitar had been placed in a case, displayed proudly. Her will already said that it would go to her eldest, who had gotten chosen to play in an established band. He also taught the same lessons he had when he had picked up her guitar when he wasn't touring or creating music.</p><p>Still though. She really did wish it would stop twinging out "I love you. Always" every night. She wished to sleep. And really, her husband may have been a smart man with money, but he had been a lazy slob of a man. She didn't want him to stick around after she had put in so much work to kill off so that she could enjoy her golden years without picking up after him.</p><p>Space:</p><p>It was vast and cold. She had known that. It was filled with planets and suns and things that she could only hope to understand even slightly. She would often wonder how it would feel to die up there in the vastness. To stop being able to breath and freeze in seconds.</p><p>To float, unable to stop, just a body that would most likely never decay. Maybe one day get hit by a meteorite, or a comet, or just general space debris.</p><p>She wondered but she never thought for a second that she would learn first hand how it felt to die in space as she was shoved out into a space lock, the door closing behind her before the one to the outside opened, pulling her out without a suit.</p><p>She found that even as a ghost, space was quite big and scary. But so very filled with those had found their own death in the vastness around them.</p><p>Book:</p><p>It was heavy and thick, covered in leather that had been carefully treated and taken from a deer. It was well kept, its counterparts just as in good of a shape. Alexander ran his fingers over the cover and frowned at the raised lettering that created the title. He had no doubt that at one time they had been embossed in gold foil, creating a beautiful contrast to the rest of the dark leather.</p><p>Picking up a piece of paper, he carefully placed it over the cover and ran his charcoal stick back and forth to get a proper impression of the words. "Births and Deaths of the Marquis Family. Years Fifteen-ninety to nineteen-seventy," he read aloud. "Well damn. You would think that they would have removed this when they moved."</p><p>Maria looked over his shoulder before smiling. "Oh, information," she chirped, pulling it over and opening it. They found all the names that they knew they needed, finding that someone had actually written down 'murdered' for several causes of death with 'undetermined' for others.</p><p>The book was creepy in that for many years it was mostly a death registry, but it was still informative. The ink and book though looked so very new which added to it.</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0011"><h2>11. All the Words pt 2 (disturbing)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title: All the Words 2</p><p>Word Count: 1443</p><p>Story World: Various</p><p>Prompt: various</p><p>Warnings: dead bodies, murder talked about, ghosts,</p><p>*~*~*~*</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>coffee:</p><p>He sniffed at the coffee in his cup and frowned, looking into the cup. Alex tipped the cup back and forth, watching as chunks shifted around. "I just poured the creamer damnit," he said, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck rise. He sighed, pulled out a small clay shell that he used to burn sage on, and a bundle of sage. Placing the bundle onto the shell, he sprinkled a bit of holy water on it before setting it to burn, silently praying to cleanse the air around him.</p><p>The scream of a pissed off woman fading from the house made him sigh. "I <em>really</em> need to get her to fuck off," he muttered as he stood up and moved to get a fresh cup of coffee. "Nothing is so scary as a lack of coffee while doing taxes."</p><p>He would make his coffee with holy water if it meant getting through the paperwork.</p><p>Pen:</p><p>It was slim and clicked rather pleasantly when he pressed the top of the button on top, the ball-point popping out. He could remember when he had been handed it over by a realtor who had been selling his home for him. She had worked hard to sell the house for a good price, even without knowing about the hidden room with all the bodies.</p><p>But he had found out that someone who knew about things had bought the house, making him pout. He had to clean some things up after that. So, he had broken into her offices to remove any and all files, both physical and electronic that had his name connected to the address sold. And where his new address was.</p><p>It wouldn't have been a good idea to have on file since he had used a false name when buying the house and selling it.</p><p>It really was to bad that she had found him when he had been working on her computer. The pen had worked well enough once he had buried it in her eye and pushing until it had broken bone and killed her. She had flopped back out of his hands like a marionette with it's strings cut. He sighed as he pulled off his gloves, replaced them with new gloves, and gone back to his hacking.</p><p>He had to finish his job after all. No need for anyone to know about him after all.</p><p>Fan:</p><p>Whistling as he wandered through the various pieces of furniture in the room, Brian paused and looked at a box, tilting his head. He wasn't as sensitive to the world of the spirits and the such as his sister and boyfriend were, but there were a few things that he had learned to pick up in the last year. Clicking his tongue, he ran a hand over it, the ring on his middle finger sparking at the aura around the box, making him hum.</p><p>"Ah, a rather...cursed item," a low voice said. A man in a dark suit with a goatee walked around him, staring at the box. Brian smiled at Lex, knowing the owner and knowing that the other man worked hard to protect his customers.</p><p>"How so?" he asked, tilting his head to the side, eyes wide as he stared at his friend.</p><p>"It's come back to us four times now. The man that sent it to me said it had come back to his shop a dozen or so times," Lex replied, shrugging. "The woman who sold it to him said that the fan inside came from Japan but not much else. There is a certificate, but each family who owned it sold it off with other things for various reasons. I think that it tends to pick it's victims very carefully. And will throw a fit if it's bought by someone not chosen," he continued.</p><p>Brian smiled, patting the box. "Do you happen to have a large wooden trunk for sale? In good shape and looking like one box," he said, looking over at the other man. Lex raised an eyebrow.</p><p>"Of course. Let me gather it. Do you want my tools to?" he asked, Brian smiling and nodding. He opened the box while Lex went to get the wooden box and the tools while he picked up the fan and spread it out. On it was a bunch of blossoming flowers. Within those flowers though was a twist of darkness.</p><p>His ring sparked again. "Oh, so you will hate me," he chuckled. "A year of studying with a master, means that I know how to seal a thing like you," he cooed. He folded the fan again, placing it back into its spot, closing the box again. It didn't take him long to carve the needed marks on the truck before placing the box within. He took the glue that Lex offered and tucked it away into his bag. "I'll glue it shut when I get home. I need to add some blessed salt, and the such first."</p><p>Lex smirked and waved off the payment. "Just make sure it finds its way into a concrete box somewhere," he drawled, heading off with a smirk.</p><p>Cat:</p><p>The cat meowed. He didn't look over at the cat. He knew that if he did, he wouldn't be able to save himself.</p><p>The cat meowed again. Swallowing, he carefully kept his eyes on the notebook that he was writing down his current notes into. He didn't know what he was going to do. Even after dropping off the woman, the cat was still around. Not so mean looking. Not so cruel. But still around.</p><p>He shuddered as the cat growled, feeling the sound deep down in his bones. He looked up at the plant that he was carefully watching. He frowned when the scent of burning soil filled his nose, before flames slowly crept up the stalk of the plant, his eyes widening as he tossed the notebook he had been writing it to the side. He grabbed his biggest bottle of water, wanting to save the plant when the flames went pure orange.</p><p>Not orange like fire. Or a sunset. But orange, like the fruit.</p><p>By the time that they were out, the plant and soil were gone, and the cat was turning around, leaving the area with a flick of her tail.</p><p>The cat meowed as the man screamed in anger.</p><p>candle:</p><p>It was so dark. She didn't know where she was, and it was bad. Checking her body with her hands, she found that she still had her lighter, an almost empty thing, and a few matches in her jacket pocket. She pulled her jacket off once she had those items in her hand and used the sleeves to carefully feel around her, knocking over something round with a dull thump.</p><p>She reached outside of the jacket sleeve and found the round thing, feeling wax and dips, picking it up. She carefully felt it up and found that there was a wick, or what she hoped was a wick. Using her lighter, she sighed happily when she was proven right that it was a candle, lighting the wick. With light cutting through the darkness, she found that she didn't have any shoes and outside of a certain area, there was a layer of small glass pieces on the ground.</p><p>She didn't have shoes or a bra for whatever reason. She frowned and stood, pulling off her shirt.</p><p>"If this fucker decided that me losing a bra means that I'm not going to use my own clothes, then he doesn't know that I take my clothes off for a fucking living," she growled, ripping up her shirt and creating enough padding between her feet and the glass. She carefully walked through, using the candle to light her way, finding spots that the glass was the thinnest to walk on.</p><p>Once to the door, she pushed it open, finding that whoever had grabbed her hadn't locked it. "What kind of fucking idiot is this guy?" she asked.</p><p>"An idiot who thought sucking demon cock was a good idea," a voice drawled to her right. Swinging around, she stared at a man with dyed neon yellow hair, dark eyes, and a small smile. "You were his last sacrifice. He...met a shovel that caved his nose in. We're just waiting for the police and heard you moving around down here. Come on up to the first floor. I'm sure Brinda probably has a layer she can spare for you."</p><p>"Thanks," she replied, following him with a shake of her head. Life was fucking strange since the veil fell. </p><p> </p>
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